Back in school. Crap. So, naturally, I'll be publishing an entirely new story, while I have yet another one in progress. I even confuse myself sometimes.

Disclaimer: Just say no, kids.

Day One

(or)

Gravedigger

Last thing I remember eating was a peach. Not even a good peach neither. It was hard, hadn't had enough time to ripen, but I ate it, because I knew I wouldn't be able to eat again for a while. They tried to get me to eat here, at the holding cell, and I don't eat their food. Nothing wrong with their food, I just don't want to eat. That peach was a day ago, though, and I've been running all over the city ever since. I should eat, and that's what they say, so I don't, because I'm feeling stubborn. I'm also feeling starved.

I don't much get why they want me to eat. They don't even like me! Why're they so danged interested in how I feel, or my health, or things like that, if most of these guys want me on the metal chair with straps, if only to keep me out of their hair for a while until I got out. I could even get out of that lethal injection room, I bet. I'm the best thief, so I could get out. They haven't sentenced me there yet, because so far I'm only really annoying. The moment I kill somebody, though, they'll strap me down, and they'll stick me full of needles. That ain't happened yet. They're still sick of me. Sick.

When it's dark out, they take me to a van. Except it isn't very black, because you never know the night when you live in a city. I miss seeing nothing when the sun goes down. You don't get that in a city. Some day, we'll lose that. Stars will become a legend, the moon will give us its dark side.

They march me to the van. They say that they're taking me all the way up to North Dakota, to some special prison by the border. I blushed and asked them if they're really driving all the way for little old me? They scoffed. "Don't be flattered."

I've never been to North Dakota. Actually, and this is pretty sad and/or dumb, I've never been out of California. I never got to travel when I was a little kid because in our house, the floors were blue and spotless and nobody said a word unless it was a secret or a prayer or a lie. When the bank took the house, the streets took me, and when you're eleven years old and living in an irrigation ditch in the San Francisco suburbs, you don't travel much. In those days, a road trip was dodging traffic all the way to the grocery store and deciding what things I would buy if I had money. I never bought food, even if I had money. I scavenged instead. When I got money, or found it, or helped a fat wallet hanging out of somebody's back pocket fall, then I'd get pretty things, like earrings or Crayolas. I was a pretty stupid kid, in case you can't tell.

That whole not eating thing stuck to me, though. I don't eat too much. That's why I'm so scrawny. They call me scarecrow sometimes, or broomstick, or beanpole. I believe them every time. My wrists and hips poke out. I can count my ribs. When I feel really desperate, I count them to make sure they're all there. They always are. That's why I like my ribs; they never leave me. If I woke up one day without a rib, I think I'd really go crazy (not that I'm crazy now. I'm just eccentric. By law—and I've really researched this—I am one hundred percent sane.)

When they toss my weary carcass in the back of the van, there are three guards back there. Two more are in the front seat. And then there's Raven. They said a Titan would be accompanying me on my trip, as they would with Mammoth and Gizmo while they were being trucked off to their separate prisons. I'd been hoping it wouldn't be her. She really hates me. Really hates me, I mean. I bitch and moan about it while they check and recheck the clunky power-nullifying cuffs that they've snapped around my ankles, neck, and hands. These things are new; I've never had them before. It means that the good guys are getting smarter about these things, because before there was no point in imprisoning me. Bad luck rolls off of me in waves and it corrodes whatever is against me. In that scenario, prison walls and the guard's will to live. It's more dangerous to jail me than to let me run free.

I don't like hurting people. I will if I have to; any cornered animal will tell you that. I just won't enjoy it.

In the van, nobody talks. Like my old house, the one with blue floors. Maybe I could tell them about the blue floors to break the silence. "This house I grew up in, it had these blue floors, dig?" The guards put guns at me when I talk, so I stop. Raven doesn't move. She sits on her bench, unruffled, looking much different. She's wearing these black slacks and this peacoat, a navy blue one with big brass buttons that I can see my face in, and these short black gloves that look like something I'd buy. More likely something that I'd steal, really, because I almost never buy things. I buy music though; not online, because I don't trust computers with my music, but from stores. I go into music stores really late, with my face all covered up, and get my favorite albums, and then I give them a tip even. I only buy music. I stole a Bible once out of a church, for shits and giggles, but I buy my music.

Raven just sits there. She looks supreme, in a scary sort of way. It's obvious she doesn't want to be here, and that she doesn't like it. I can see it. If she likes where she is, then she's slightly more active. I know that because of the fights we're in. She likes those in a weird way. I think. I'm not a mind reader, like she might be. She seems to like those, though. Not this; she doesn't like this. I don't like it either, but I won't tell her that we agree. I don't want to be shown more guns.

The van rolls off. It rumbles a lot. There are no windows in the walls; just one barred one into the cab, should I suddenly become morbidly interested in looking at the buzz cut and the mullet who're driving the van. I see a bit of windshield beyond that, but not much. There's mostly just a bunch of bright lights.

I was a bright light, once. It was a really long time ago though. But when I was, I was the best. I was like a supernova. But that was when I was a bright light. And that is too long ago.

We travel for a really long time. The other guards start falling asleep and Buzz Cut and Mullet start grumbling about how they'd drink any coffee, like, literally, any coffee. I know what you mean, man, I dig. That's how they talk. They sound tired. Raven stays awake, and I can't tell if she's tired or not. If she is tired, she isn't going to sleep. I heard somewhere that demons don't actually need to sleep.

Hell. I'm tired too. Not enough food makes you tired like that, you know. Tired like you can't believe. I start humming to keep myself awake. Raven, unsurprisingly, does not react. She keeps staring at me. Buzz Cut and Mullet go on griping about coffee. One of the guards, who has the spiky black points of a tattoo poking up above his shirt's neckline, snorts and rolls his shoulders, but doesn't wake up. This makes me bolder. I get braver when I don't get caught. Some call it cocky. I call it me.

I start singing the song I was humming, but I don't really sing it, because I don't know if I can sing. I start talking the lyrics, because it's one of those songs that you can talk instead of sing. I look at Raven, because I think she'd like that song, if she likes music at all.

"Cyrus Jones," I start. She doesn't even twitch. Inhuman. "1810 to 1913. Made his great grandchildren believe you could live to a hundred and three,"

"Shuddup back there!" One of the cab guards, I think it's Buzz Cut, shouts back. I do, for the time being at least. If there's anybody in this cursed van I'll think of listening to, it wouldn't be those idiot guards, it would be Raven, because I respect her. Since she's not telling me to shut up, I won't stay shutted up. If she wanted me to stop, I doubt she'd say shut up anyhow, because she seems just a tad bit more regal than that. She seems like the kind of girl who has standards.

"A hundred and three is forever when you're just a little kid, so Cyrus Jones lived forever." I finish the first stanza in a whisper, but that's still too loud in this van. Just like that house; a whisper was too loud. Whispers got you hurt; sometimes hurt real bad, sometimes just enough to cry over.

"I said shuddup!" Buzz Cut snaps, more irate than before. "Chrissakes, guys! Wake up!" He yaps at the snoozing guards. The tattooed one snorts again, sits up, looks on in a very confused manner.

"Huh?" He slurs, still half asleep.

"She's starting to mouth off again, and you're sleeping. So wake up, and keep the bitch quiet." Buzz Cut demands.

"Hey!" I'm indignant. Being carted off to a prison thousands of miles away, fine, do that. But for all that is holy, refrain from calling me a bitch. I did not a thing to warrant that title. At least not from Buzz Cut.

"Shut it." The tattooed one nudges me with his booted foot. Briefly, I want to spit at him. He deserves it. But I don't, since I'm in way over my head here, and spitting at law enforcement never really works out no matter what situation you're in. Especially not here, I'm guessing. Not even I want to toe that line.

I stop singing then. The other guards back here are raising their heads, becoming aware of the peace being broken. Buzz Cut and Mullet mutter and curse. Raven stares at me, then closes her eyes for a very long time. The clock on the van's dashboard, which I can see if I really crane my neck, says she only has her eyes closed for a minute. A minute seems much longer if nobody's talking, and they're all not talking at me.

"Don't mind her," Raven sighs. "It was a nice song anyway,"

I gawk. The guards gawk. The laws of probability do a double take as well. Nobody defies her word, though, because even though the guards have guns and Buzz Cut is driving this van, she's in charge. Because some people can really do anything, and she's one of those people. You don't just defy a person who can do anything.

"Continue if you wish." She nods at me, very patiently.

"Nah…I'm, uh, done. I guess," I stammer, wishing my hands weren't enclosed in these clunky cuffs so I could wring the ever-loving hell out of my fingers. That's what I do when I get nervous. She nods, shifts her weight, and we don't talk again.

The guards start falling asleep once more. The van pulls over, so Mullet—who turns out to be a total meatloaf—can drive while Buzz Cut catches some z's. My eyelids start drooping. Raven stays immaculately conscious. Mullet rolls the window down and chilly air comes in. It's really refreshing, and makes Raven's hair flutter around. Mine does too, because I don't get to keep it in my favorite practical horns when I'm in places like this, so it's loose and thick and gets in the way, all the way to the small of my back. It makes my head feel real heavy.

The cold air does something. Raven leans her head back, against the metal grille covering the window into the cab. She looks very tired suddenly. Exhausted, even. This must be taxing on her too, I guess. Maybe demons do need sleep. So I take up the song again; I don't think anybody will care.

"Muriel Stonewall, 1903 to 1954, she lost both of her babies in the second great war," I tell her. Raven nods a little instead of looking at me. I curl up on the floor, too sleepy to care that it's hard and cold and generally uncomfortable. "Now you should never have to watch your only children lowered in the ground. I mean, you should never have to bury your own babies," I don't feel like continuing. The more you think about it, the sadder it gets.

"You have any happy songs?" Raven whispers while the sky starts to turn gray.

"No. I don't really believe in happy songs. At least not most of them," I explain, my cheek numb from being pressed against the floor. I mumble, but she still hears me, I know.

"How…" She doesn't finish. Her eyes close and she moans softly, relaxes. She doesn't look too scary when she's asleep.

"Don't let the bed bugs bite." I tell her, even though we neither have beds nor bugs with us—at least, none that I know about. Then I let myself drift off as well, and it isn't that bad honestly, because I spent my first eleven years sleeping on hard, cold floors in a silent places. It's just like home, and it's just like prison, because they're synonyms.